The Homeland of EveryonE

If you see the world from above, even a few miles up, you can’t see borders or divisions. If you were to go really far away from Earth, you would see only a tiny blue dot. This spec of dust is the place where all human history and traditions reside. In this dot, we are sometimes encouraged to see each other as foreigners, but if we look deep enough, in all our joys and struggles, we're not that different. Travelling to distant places sometimes feels like coming home. Unexpectedly, we find something in other lands that resonates deeply within us, as a new home close to our hearts.

Influenced by the vision of a shared world culture, the Blue Dot Ensemble was created by musician and photographer Pedro Bonatto and dancer Iana Komarnytska as a personal journey to connect the dots between traditions from different corners of the planet, using art, sound and movement as a guiding compass.

Together with a group of artists from four continents, we start our explorations with the art of the Near East, from the drumming sounds of the Sahara to the dance movements of Persia. Our goal is to celebrate the beauty found in the mixture of cultures, and the free trade of traditions in this small blue dot, the homeland of everyone. We think that the cultures of the world belong to all of us. And if we are open to them, we can choose to see ourselves as part of the same tribe, all from everywhere, where the only in crowd is the whole world.

We hope you join our conspiracy to fall in love with the whole world, going beyond the forces that want to divide us.

Pedro Bonatto, Iana Komarnytska & The Blue Dot Ensemble

Post script:

The band’s concept and name was inspired by an image of the Earth taken by Voyager 1 in 1990 when it was about 6 billion kilometres away, at the suggestion of astronomer Carl Sagan. In his book, ’The Pale Blue Dot’, Sagan reflected on the image’s philosophical implications, reminding us that “everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.”

We were also inspired by Joseph Campbell’s interpretation of the ‘Earthrise’ image and its implication for a shared world mythology and culture for the 21st century. The photograph was taken by the crew of Apollo 8 n Christmas Eve Day, 1968, showing our planet rising into view above the lunar horizon.